The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt "Courier New"; text-align: left; '>Hey Seeker, how is the Gamecube doing? Is it holding up? Think it'll last?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>It's kicking Microsoft's ass. Seeker told me he saw Mario kicking an unconcious Bill Gates in the nuts at the MS parking lot.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Im a born-again Nintendo whore. I love my gamecube. I barely touch my PS2 anymore. And the X-box... heh, thats funny :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>I think that like past Nintendo Systems it'll release enough killer games to keep alive, and people intrested.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>As for the competition with XBox, is it really matter who's 2nd best? This isn't the NBA Eastern Conference. :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Gamecube fucking rocks. N64 is nothing more than a bad dream to me now.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's true! I saw it with my own eyes!</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Gaycube...lame play on words...but oh-so-fitting in your case ; )</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I don't think there's any doubt that it's going to be more successful than the N64, the games and hardware are both cheaper and more plentiful. If you like Nintendo games, this is your dream system, and this time it has major third party support which the N64 lacked.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's not his fault Xbox is going the way of it's cousin the XFL =P</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Enjoy your soon-to-be-released Mario64 clone that is disappointing err...hundreds... of japanese toddlers as we speak... ; )

Go Nintendo innovation!

KO-</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Have you played Mario Sunshine yet Kali?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>......


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.......


No, of course not...just read some "First Impressions" from Japan.

Why?

I don't need facts to make fun of the Gamecube and everything Nintendo damn it!

....

I need to be an Xbox fanboy...this forum is too lop-sided.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Did you get Bill's wallet, at least?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>'Cube is doin' fairly well, particularly in Japan. The real test is later this year, when Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Mario Party, and all the other big games are out</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>In the US, I think the 'Box still has a bit of a lead (half a mil or so). It's all about Nintendo's Xmas lineup this year</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>It's gaining ground.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>For me, it's the opposite. I've always liked Nintendo, but right now, the PS2 is ruling. Just so many decent to great games for it, you can't help but be playing some good game you bought for $30 Cdn or less</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Unlike, say, Tomb Raider, Spyro, Crash, or numerous others, at least the Mario games are far different than each other, with much more innovation than all those combined</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Why not just be a fan-boy of games and forget all these PS2-loving bastards. Xbox has some great games on it, even if you need 5 people to carry it</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Not after the price drop. The PS2 and 'Box took off a lot more than the 'Cube after that. But that's simply a matter of games, the others simply have a better overall selection right now. But that'll change</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Don't be so hard on yourself, Sues. =8^P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Yeah, they still only have one big name title out, but it's sold over 3 million copies.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I've already got a few of my friends agreeing to help me and a U-Haul rented out for when my used on finally comes in</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Anyone who's going to buy a GC for a Nintendo game probably already has one.

As long as the only games people look forward to on a Nintendo platform are Nintendo games, they'll never get anywhere.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>They're not pulling any new converts in any significant numbers based on the game. The people who likes their game probably has a GC already and it doesn't really matter how innovative the next Mario is, you're not going to convert someone who bought PS2 for say Tomb Raider, or Gran Tourismo, or a RPG, since those are totally different game compared to Mario.</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>That's ok, cling to your cinder block of a system, while the rest of us real gamers play some good games. We don't want the likes of you in our market :)</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>I'll give your MS-box a little credit tho, halo is a wonderful game.... the other good ones I'll get on PC :p</div>

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Yea, GT3 ruled, didnt buy it tho, keep borrowing it. Last PS2 game I bought was FFX I think. Once I quit playing that illegal-subtance of a game, Dark age of Camelot, I just fell into my Gamecube. I was away from PS2 for so long I didnt really care :) If you can recommend some new games, please do. Eternal darkness for GC impressed me a lot, and it's really fun, and the RE remake was fantastic. Gamecube has a lot going for it, and I know the PS2 does too, I'm just not aware of a lot of the games I guess. And X-Box... well, it's a piece of shit except when you put halo in it.... then it's like a piece of shit with a dollar in it. It's not worth going through the shit to get to it :p</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I bought my PS2 mostly because of the RPGs available for it, and I am tempted to buy a GC so that I can play Mario and Zelda. I probably won't do it, but man do I want to.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Don, do you really think you could do better at managing the day-to-day operations of a multibillion-dollar company? Armchair CEOing is easy. It's a lot harder when you're actually doing it.</div>

<div style='font: ; text-align: left; '>Any <i>gamer</i> that is buying a Gamecube for a Nintendo game already has one, but as you surely know, gamers do not make up the mass market. Millions of Gamecubes are likely to be sold the moment a Pokemon game is published and parents are suddenly faced with a choice between licking Nintendo's boots or dealing with a homicidal, suicidal child. Also, Mario sitting right there on the shelf will convince many more casual consumers to buy a cube than the future possibility, likely unknown to them, that a Mario game may grace the system is likely to.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Aside from Pokemon, I don't really see any Nintendo games that can win a large number of new converts. Most Nintendo games are played by the same kind of players. At least back in the Nintendo days all I see is Nintendo games on the shelves, and it's not too different right now with GC, so it's hard for me to imagine 3rd party has significant influence on system sales. Although GC isn't Nintendo, if only Nintendo is responsible for most of the system sales, then it's not going to be able to reach very far. If we assume every person who ever bought a system bought it due to a game (seems reasonable to me), then Nintendo's million sellers sure overlap a lot of gamers and as a result, doesn't really get different kind of players. If you look at Sony, their games pretty much cover all the spectrum of gaming. Nintendo is still a prodominently platformer/action game maker and the boundary between two is pretty blurry.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Not really, if you think back to the N64 sales Zelda caused unit sales to skyrocket higher than they'd ever been in Nintendo's History.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>There aren't many Nintendo games out yet on Gamecube actually, only 6 titles, the rest are all third party.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Everyone also thought there would be no way for the SNES to pass the Sega Genesis's sales, come the end of 1994 it did just that.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Back in N64 era Zelda would eat up half of the shelves for the N64 section and the other half would be Perfect Dark or something. There ought to be more 3rd party games then 1st party games but if the 3rd party aren't selling, it's not going to help too much.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Their relationship with Square sure doesn't help them very much on the RPG department. You can't make everything in house but Nintendo has never been wiling to let other people make games on their systems, from my observation.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Hmmm really? Sega never seen to have that much of an advantage to me.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>What are you talking about?!!?! Square ditched THEM because they chose to go with cartridges, which didn't give them the storage space they needed to take their games to the next level.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The World According to Don: Get It Right.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You know what? Never mind. I'm a fool. I really don't know enough about the situation to know the true cause, and I have heard rumors that there's some sort of bad blood between the two companies. But really...I doubt it's that alone...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Look how many people our age are saying "I fucking hate Nintendo, but damn, Metroid is coming out". There were enough of those for Zelda. Now you got both of them in a span of 6 month (if Zelda stays for Feb 2003, which it won't). They've also got A LOT more third party and adult games, unlike N64</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Not really. Actually check out what's coming for the system, and aside from a few big titles, you see a lot of adult-oriented games coming for it from third parties. You would NEVER have seen Soul Calibur or Timesplitters 2 coming out for N64</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Again, wrong. 3rd party are selling. Just ask EA and THQ</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Don't let your bias get in the way of making all-encompassing industry evaluations.....

Yes, so far, the GC is shit for RPGs. There's what, one of them? And it's not like they're actually hostile or anything, this time, they've actually got some coming....soon, too. Remember the Tales series? The new Tales of Phantasia 2 game is a GC exclusive. It's only 1 game, but man, that's huge to have Enix working on Nintendo again, an unheard of event on the N64. We all know there's a FF game coming, but what? So, at least Square is SOMEWHAT working on them. A lesser Square RPG is better than none at all (lest we forget, Square is partly owned by Sony now). They also got the 3rd installment of Evolution. Not a big deal to me, but it is an RPG series that's somewhat popular in Japan.

Getting Square and Enix back on board is a HUGE deal for RGP fans who like Nintendo, and for Nintendo as a company. It might be minor, but it's huge.

But at the end of the day, RPGs don't have THAT great of an effect on sales compared to, say, platformers, action, or sports games. It's become a big market, but still dwarved by the big genres, which Nintendo will be fairly strong in, particularly later this year.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>'Box will be good later, I promise. So many good games coming. But for more PS2 games, play GTA3, Maximo, Sky Odyssey, and Silpheed. You should be able to get all for under $30 Cdn used</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Well, not GTA3...</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Shit, I forgot about Metroid. Seriously, $150 for a GC might be worth it to play Mario, Zelda and Metroid.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>They are going to fuck it up. Just like they fucked up Mario and Zelda. Damn Nintendo and their fucking sub-par 3D technology.</div>